“Well, White, what news?” and the young men crowded round him. “The news is that old Tamms has gone to smash, as I always said he would,” said White; and he sank into an easy chair and called for some soda-water with an air of languid indifference. “Pshaw! we knew that before----” “Why did you ask me, then?” said White. “If people will speculate with other people’s money----” “Other people’s money?” “Yes--other people’s money,” drawled out the young man, sneeringly. “Old Townley got his boxes full, and then used it.” “Hush,” said several, pointing to Mr. Livingstone in the window. “I guess it’ll be some time before White gets his precious partner in here, after that remark,” said another. Mr. Livingstone, too, had taken a paper, and been poring over it; but something in this last speech seemed to reach his ear, and he looked up. “Let’s ask the old boy,” said Malgam, in an undertone. “He must know more than all of us.” “Have you heard this news, sir?” said Killian Van Kull. Mr. Livingstone nodded silently. “And is it as bad as they say?” “Worse,” said the old gentleman, his voice quavering. “But you cannot suppose that Mr. Townley knew anything of it?” “It makes little difference whether he knew of it or not,” answered the old man. There was a printed list of the club’s members on the wall opposite him, and he was looking at it. Perhaps he was looking at the name of Charles Townley, whom he had played with as a boy. “I knew that Tamms was a bad egg,” said De Witt, “but that Mr. Townley----” “Charles Townley, sir, is no better than a scoundrel,” said Mr. Livingstone slowly. “He had all my wife’s money, and nearly all of mine--but DAMME, sir, do you suppose I care for the money? If Charles Townley were sitting here with me again--I would give him-- If Charlie Townley were sitting here, I--” The old man’s voice grew weak, and he broke off in a sob. The young men shifted about uneasily; and Derwent, in his corner, put up his newspaper before his face and tried to read. Lucie Gower came in. He had just got home from a shooting trip down South. “Is Mr. Townley here?” said he. “I stopped at Wall Street on my way up-town; and they tell me that the officers have gone to arrest him.”